Wednesday, 13 January 2016

My Predictions for the 88th Academy Awards Nominations

by

Julien Faddoul

The nominations for the 88th
Academy Awards are tomorrow morning. Despite their nonsensicality, I always
have fun predicting them every year. Here are my final predictions.

I have made the necessary
amount of predictions correlating to the limit of each category – 10 for
PICTURE, 3 for MAKEUP and 5 for everything else – after which I list my
alternates which I have limited myself to only 3.

BEST PICTURE

The Big
Short, Bridge of Spies, Mad Max, The Martian, The Revenant and Spotlight are all in. Brooklyn,
Carol, Room and Compton are all
vulnerable. It all depends on how many nominees ultimately make it through
(decided by a preferential ballot). The race this year has been thinner than
usual with all 13 of these films having their own ardent supporters and
detractors, and then some.

Predictions:

The Big
Short

Bridge
of Spies

Brooklyn

Carol

Mad Max:
Fury Road

The
Martian

The
Revenant

Room

Spotlight

Straight
Outta Compton

Alternates

Inside
Out

Sicario

Trumbo

DIRECTOR

I’m with the DGA line-up
here, but if any of the five is vulnerable, it’s Miller.

Predictions:

The Big
Short – Adam
McKay

Mad Max:
Fury Road – George Miller

The
Martian – Ridley
Scott

The
Revenant –
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

Spotlight
– Thomas
McCarthy

Alternates

Bridge
of Spies – Steven Spielberg

Carol – Todd Haynes

Sicario – Denis Villeneuve

ACTOR

I can see both Damon and
Fassbender being left off, as both those performances rubbed some people the
wrong way.

Predictions:

The
Danish Girl – Eddie Redmayne

The
Martian – Matt Damon

The
Revenant –
Leonardo DiCaprio

Steve
Jobs – Michael
Fassbender

Trumbo – Bryan Cranston

Alternates

Black
Mass – Johnny
Depp

Concussion – Will Smith

Mr
Holmes – Ian
McKellen

ACTRESS

Okay, now we get into the
great mess of the 2015 awards season. It is clear that both Rooney Mara and Alicia Vikander are committing category fraud by
campaigning for supporting positions. I ultimately have to make an executive
decision as to what I predict will happen and I’m taking the coward’s route and
sticking with the campaign. It’s just cleaner that way, even though it might
cost me in prediction points. But if either of them appears here, it will be
instead of Jennifer Lawrence.

Predictions:

Brooklyn
– Saoirse
Ronan

Carol – Cate Blanchett

45 Years
– Charlotte
Rampling

Joy – Jennifer Lawrence

Room – Brie Larson

Alternates

Carol – Rooney Mara

The
Danish Girl – Alicia Vikander

Grandma – Lily Tomlin

SUPPORTING ACTOR

The year’s most difficult
category to pin down. There are dozens of different scenarios that could play
out here and the only two I'm confident with are Stallone and Rylance. Both Tremblay
and Dano are additional cases of category fraud.

Predictions:

Bridge
of Spies – Mark Rylance

The Big
Short – Christian
Bale

Creed – Sylvester Stallone

99 Homes
– Michael
Shannon

Room – Jacob Tremblay

Alternates

Beasts
of No Nation – Idris Elba

Love
& Mercy – Paul Dano

Spotlight
– Mark
Ruffalo

SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Again, I have placed Vikander
and Mara here. What makes things more uncertain is that Vikander could also
feasible be nominated for Ex Machina
(a genuinely supporting performance). In case you didn't know, an actor can't be nominated twice in the same category.

Predictions:

Carol – Rooney Mara

The
Danish Girl – Alicia Vikander

The
Hateful Eight – Jennifer Jason Leigh

Spotlight
– Rachel
McAdams

Steve
Jobs – Kate
Winslet

Alternates

Ex
Machina – Alicia
Vikander

Trumbo –
Helen
Mirren

Youth – Jane Fonda

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Most people are predicting Straight Outta Compton instead of Bridge of Spies, whose script no one particularly
cared for. I’m being a square though and believe the academy will be too.